Erasure Announce New Album, ‘World Beyond,’ and North American Tour

Erasure have revealed that they will release their next album, World Beyond, on March 9. They also unveiled dates for a seven-week tour of North America to take place this summer.

World Beyond offers a fresh take on their most recent record, last year's World Be Gone. They collaborated with seven members of Echo Collective, a Brussels-based classical ensemble, to produce new versions of all the songs found on that album. The idea came from Erasure keyboardist Vince Clarke, who originally wanted an orchestral arrangement of one of its songs, but then it turned into an album-length project, and a collaborative effort with Echo Collective.

“It was great to talk through ideas with Echo Collective and then see how their arrangements took shape," Clarke said in a news release. "The collaboration has given elements of the album a whole new feel and Andy [Bell]'s vocals remain as powerful and uplifting as ever,”

“The process of this project was really deconstruction and re-purposing," Neil Leiter, who plays viola in Echo Collective, added. "We started by listening to each track layer by layer, and then, using the layers that inspired us or we found essential, we reconstructed the tracks instrumentally. Each of the instruments in the band setup were chosen for their inherent capacities and roles. Often choosing which layer to put with each instrument was a question of matching roles and colors. By stripping so much away, we were able to find a new space for Andy to fill. The text of the songs became much more important in the overall construction of the songs, and Andy was free to explore more dynamics and vocal range.”

You can watch a video about the making of World Beyond above, and pre-order your copy at either PledgeMusic or Lexer, where various merchandise bundles are available for sale.

The North American leg of their world tour begins on July 6 at the Fillmore in Miami and concludes at the Wiltern Theater in Los Angeles on Aug. 26. Check out the dates below and get full ticketing information at their website.